Just Your Ordinary Picnic
by Topgallant
Summary: Guybrush hopes to throw Elaine a romantic picnic on Mêlée Island, but his plans change slightly when LeChuck drops by. Post Escape From Monkey Island


"D'arrrrgh! I be back to settle a score, with ye, Threepwood!"

Guybrush Threepwood (mighty pirate) looked up from his rather haphazardly arranged picnic blanket. It belonged to his wife, Elaine, and it had an eye-pleasing, catchy checkered design…or, at least, it would be, were it not pink.

Yes, that's right. Guybrush Threepwood's picnic blanket was none other than the dreaded color. Pink.

The very same color that struck fear into the hearts of even the most fearsome, stalwart, unhygienic pirate filth that ever did walk into the Scumm bar. So now, he had to put up with that, as well as an equally unclean zombie-ghost-pirate-demon who quite simply had set his mind on being his personal poltergeist, so to speak.

As tempted as he was to ignore this interruption, Guybrush couldn't very well let LeChuck ruin the lovely picnic he planned for his plunderbunny, and -at the moment- voracious wife, Elaine Marley-Threepwood.

Besides, he was a mighty pirate, as well as the anti-LeChuck! _That's creepy_, he thought. Okay, so forget the anti-LeChuck part. He was Guybrush Threepwood, mighty pirate!

So, Guybrush jumped to his feet and pointed at LeChuck threateningly. "LeChuck!" he said with passionate feeling, "I've come to vanquish you!"

The evil captain, currently in his ghost form, shifted and replied, "Well, no, actually, Threepwood. I've come to vanquish _you_, so at last, I'll have that beauteous Elaine all to meself!" And with that, he threw in a malevolent laugh, to punctuate the sentence's importance.

Guybrush gasped, mainly because it seemed the right thing to do. "You fiend!"

"Why thank'ee, Threepwood." LeChuck said.

"Wait…hey..." Guybrush said suddenly, with some realization, "You're supposed to have been affected by the Ultimate Insult! Why're you still being mean and unbearable and intent on marrying my wife?"

LeChuck shifted uncomfortably and made a noncommittal grunt, suddenly feeling abashed.

"I mean really though," Guybrush continued musing to himself, "It _does_ make sense you've come back. After all, that ending wasn't exactly satisfying enough. Sure, Ozzie was squashed, and all, but I mean, c'mon! You're the ghost pirate LeChuck! You can't just…end like that! Still," Guybrush tapped his chin thoughtfully, and sat down cross-legged on the ground, completely unconcerned with the malicious entity hovering before him. "That doesn't explain why your pride isn't completely shattered right now."

"D'arrrgh, good point, Threepwood! You got me there." LeChuck too seated himself on the picnic blanket, floating a few inches above the ground.

"I guess it's because there's still a dubious chance of a fifth game in the series." Guybrush said, considering his options. LeChuck nodded.

"Aye!" he agreed heartily. "Besides, don't you know that whenever a voodoo item is destroyed, everything reverts back to its original state?"

"Well no, actually." Guybrush admitted sheepishly.

"Oh, well, I heard that's what happens." LeChuck shrugged his massive, ghostly shoulders.

"Well, not necessarily…" Guybrush disagreed.

"ARGHHH!" LeChuck roared his dislike of second opinions, jumping to his feet and promptly morphed into his zombie form, waving his arms around threateningly, for added effect.

"Ah!" Guybrush yelped, and he too leapt to his feet.

"Snugglecakes, who are you talking to?" Elaine's voice wafted towards them on the crisp night air of Mêlée Island.

"Uh, no one, dear," Guybrush called back over his shoulder.

He hadn't set out the food yet!

"D'arrgghh, is that me one true love I'm hearing? Oh, what a voice! More lovely than a nightingale!"

"Hey!" Guybrush protested. "She's my one true love too!"

"Garr, in yer wildest dreams, Threepwood." LeChuck said threateningly.

At the moment, Elaine muscled her way through a patch of thick trees, and looked down at herself to wipe off dirt that had blemished her tasteful coat.

"Now really, dear, I don't understand why you had to pick such an inconvenient spot." She said in a mildly disapproving tone.

"Why, Elaine! It is so good to see ye again, just as lovely as when I was still a living man!"

The former Governor looked up.

"LeChuck. I should have known." She said thinly. "Did you have to interrupt now? My _husband_," she emphasized the word pointedly, "is _trying_ to throw me a romantic, moonlit picnic."

"No worries, my love! I shall wait until it is over, if it pleases ye better."

Elaine's expression grew suddenly wary and guarded.

"No, no, don't worry about it. It won't work. I'm…uh…washing my hair tonight."

"Yeah! Me too!" Guybrush piped in.

Elaine threw him a look of daggers and then cleared her throat, addressing LeChuck.

"As…fascinated...I am about your return, I just can't get together with you right now. I have a lot going on in my life at the moment." She explained patiently.

"I can fix that, if ye'd like. Then you can be my immortal, undead Queen, without a care in the world!" LeChuck said enthusiastically.

Guybrush coughed.

"I don't think-"

"Be quiet, Guybrush," Elaine said dangerously. "Anyway," she took on a business-like formality, "is there anything that will make you just leave Mêlée Island long enough to let my husband and I have a calm, private picnic?"

LeChuck considered that for a moment, switching back to his more aesthetically 'pleasing' ghost form. "But I'll get lonely."

Elaine sighed with exasperation.

"Alright, fine. _Join_ us for dinner, and _then_ will you leave? Oh, and attempts at kidnapping me, or cursing and or killing Guybrush are strictly prohibited. Got it?"

"Of course, my darling!" LeChuck said, bubbling with happiness.

"But _Elaine_," Guybrush whined nasally, "I don't want an undead, evil pirate joining us for dinner!"

"It's either him or we're eating off porcelain plates," Elaine said with an air of finality, bending down and beginning to set out the food.

"Oh, let me help ye with that!" LeChuck said, setting the plates.

"Well, fine." Guybrush said finally, shuddering at the thought of porcelain. "But we only brought two pairs of cutlery!"

"That's alright." Elaine said without much concern. "He's dead. But at least he's _helping set up_." She looked up briefly and fixed Guybrush with an indescribable look that was ten times more powerful than the Ultimate Insult.

."BWARRHARRHARRR!" LeChuck laughed and went back to unpacking the basket.

"Now do something useful." Elaine commanded sternly.

"Yes, dear." Guyrbush sighed.

-x-

Dinner had a strained conversation initially, with LeChuck trying to woo Elaine, Elaine trying to ignore LeChuck, and Guybrush trying to provoke him to engage in a battle of Monkey Kombat, in the hopes that he would win and force LeChuck off Mêlée Island.

But, as the night wore on, the trio found that they had a lot in common, such as all being pirates, and all loving Elaine -including Elaine, to some degree-. The conversation veered off to subjects like pirating, and grog, and three-headed monkeys, and pirating, and voodoo objects, and flaming balls of Heckfire, and grog.

Much to their surprise, after a while, it became almost _companionable_.

"So, LeChuck, how about we never fight again, huh?" Guybrush said cheerfully after their meal was finished.

"D'arrghhh, I'd agree to that!"

"Oh, good." Elaine said approvingly. "Finally."

A moment's silence passed. Years of mutual hatred didn't go away so easily.

"Arrghh, who am I fooling? I hate yer guts, Threepwood!" LeChuck growled.

"Well…I hate your guts more!" Guybrush retorted.

"Boys, boys, boys!" Elaine struggled to be heard as the two men's shouts grew louder and louder.

They both paused and stared at her.

"Let's just continue this another time." She suggested reasonably.

Another long, awkward moment of silence. A cricket chirped somewhere.

"Don't you just hate it when they always use the canned cricket noise?" Guybrush said suddenly.

No one responded to that.

Guybrush coughed.

"Well, I best be goin' now, thinking of ways to win yer heart, Elaine, and destroy you, Threepwood." LeChuck said nervously.

"Yeah, okay, well, you do that." Guybrush said shortly.

"See you, Threepwood." And with that, LeChuck vanished in a grand puff of smoke.

Guybrush and Elaine were left alone.

"Sooo…it's just you and me now, baby." Guybrush said sensually, lowering his voice a number of octaves.

"That's right." Elaine said. "You're going to help me clean this picnic up."

"But plunderbunny!"

"Guybrush!"

"Yes, dear."


End file.
